| 摘要 |
Flexible configuration of process control systems or plants allows draft changes or modifications to be made to parent process objects, e.g., in a configuration environment, without automatically triggering corresponding instantiations and/or downloads of the parent process objects and/or their derived children objects into a run-time system. Parent objects to which draft changes are allowed may include class objects, instance objects, and/or library objects. One or more modifications to a process object may be saved as a draft, and multiple drafts for a same process object may be saved as different versions. Children objects may indicate the particular version of a parent object draft from which they are derived. A user may indicate that a particular draft or version is to be published or approved. Unpublished or unapproved drafts are prevented from being instantiated in the run-time system, whereas published or approved drafts are allowed to be instantiated. |
| 主权项 |
1. A method of flexibly configuring a process plant, comprising:
receiving, at a computing device, a first user input indicative of a first modification to a process object, the process object corresponding to a specific element of the process plant, and the specific element operating according to an instantiation of the process object to provide a function corresponding to one or more processes being controlled in the process plant; modifying, by the computing device and based on the first user input, the process object to generate a first draft modified process object corresponding to the specific element; receiving a first user indication to publish the first draft modified process object; publishing, based on the received first user indication, the first draft modified process object to generate a first published edition of the process object, and storing the first published edition of the process object in a data storage entity coupled to the computing device; receiving, at the computing device, a second user input indicative of a second modification to the process object, the second modification being different from the first modification; modifying, based on the second user input, the process object to generate a second draft modified process object; receiving a second user indication to publish the second draft modified process object; publishing, based on the received second user indication, the second draft modified process object to generate a second published edition of the process object, and storing, in the data storage entity coupled to the computing device, the second published edition of the process object, wherein both the stored first published edition of the process object and the stored second published edition of the process object are available for instantiation into the specific element of the process plant; receiving, at the computing device, an indication of a user selection of one of the stored first published edition of the process object or the stored second published edition of the process object; and causing, by the computing device and based on the received user selection:
(i) the selected one of the stored first published edition of the process object or the stored second published edition of the process object to be instantiated,(ii) the instantiation of the selected published edition of the process object to be delivered, using a communication link, to the specific element of the process plant so that the specific element operates, during run-time, according to the instantiation of the selected published edition of the process object, and(iii) a prevention of a delivery, to the specific element of the process plant, of an instantiation of the unselected one of the stored first published edition of the process object or the stored second published edition of the process object. |
